BI’s change-in-government bill passes House of Representatives

A bill allowing Bainbridge Islanders to vote early on changing
their form of government passed the state House by a wide margin on
Wednesday.

Sponsored by Rep. Christine Rolfes (D-Bainbridge Island), House
Bill 1066 passed 95 to two. The bill now moves to the Senate, where
it is scheduled for a committee hearing on Monday.

If expedited through the Senate, the bill could allow a public
vote in May on whether to replace the city’s elected mayor position
with a hired city manager.

“It was remarkable,” Rolfes said of the bill’s easy passage. “It
passed by such a large margin most likely because it’s a very
straightforward bill. Legislators, all of whom have run for
office, many of whom come from local government, could see the
difficulty of the situation and were willing to fix it.”

Sen. Phil Rockefeller (D-Bainbridge Island) persuaded his
colleagues on Thursday to allow the bill an early hearing on the
Senate Government Operations and Elections Committee.

“This will expedite action on the special election bill, and I
hope we can get it voted out of that committee quickly,” he
said.

The bill, which was given emergency status to hurry its passage
before May, would alter state law to allow Bainbridge and other
cities to schedule special elections aimed at altering the
structure of local governments. Current rules require that
change-of-government ballot measures go to voters only in
November.

The law Rolfes’ bill would overturn was enacted to save small
cities from having to spend thousands of dollars on special
petition-driven elections. Bainbridge’s special election could cost
up to $70,000.

Bainbridge’s next mayoral race is scheduled for November. Under
state law, both the mayor race and the change-in-government measure
would share the November ballot. Petitioners supporting a
manager-led government argued that the two elections on the same
ballot would confuse voters and dissuade qualified mayoral
candidates from running.

Petitioners were unsuccessful in gathering enough signatures for
last November’s ballot.